FROM THE AA NEW YORK CITY CENTRAL OFFICE
PROTECTING ANONYMITY & DEFAULT SETTINGS
For Zoom users: With the rush to shift to online meetings, many of us did not take time to investigate what this meant to the spiritual foundation of our recovery – namely, anonymity. Now that online meetings are accessible, we want to pass on best practices for protecting anonymity.
These tips have been curated from the membership and online resources.
The default Zoom settings run counter to AA’s spiritual foundation of anonymity. The meetings are publicly accessible and full names and faces are often displayed. Additionally, by default all Zoom meetings are recorded to the cloud. Turning this feature off, can be easily fixed.
There are other settings under the Meeting subtab that can also be adjusted. This includes disallowing remote control of devices, file transfer, data sharing, and screen sharing.
Below are some suggested settings for your meeting to use. Please note that most of these settings are not default settings for Zoom.
Go to: Settings > Recording
• click off the Local and Cloud recording features
In the Zoom Settings section, under the Meeting subtab:
• Require Encryption for Third Party Endpoints
• Disable Auto saving chats
• Disable File transfer
• Disable Feedback to Zoom
• Disable Screen sharing
• Disable desktop/screen share for users
• Disable Remote control
• Allow Virtual background (this is the Zoom default and allows the user to use a virtual background instead of the area captured by the camera)
In the Zoom Settings section, under the Recording subtab:
• Disable Local recording
• Disable Cloud recording
• Disable Automatic recording
We will update this page with additional information. We also encourage you to share tips and tricks with us. Stay tuned for information on Seventh Tradition contributions.